Tag Archives: FLDS

Literary Review: Escape and Triumph by Carolyn Jessop

If there was one major difference between the life of Elissa Wall and that of Carolyn Jessop during their time in the FLDS it is that Carolyn is legitimately college educated and has worked as an educated in both the public school system and within the FLDS community at Alta Academy.

Elissa did not get that chance of being able to learn all that she could from a public school system, she may have had a few years (if memory serves) but even then she may not have gone further than a high school education.

Because of that significant difference, Carolyn by virtue of her background was able to discern the differences between her life before Warren Jeffs took over and after. Which is probably another major difference between the two women…. Elissa Wall throughout her life has only known of how life was when Warren Jeffs was in power (for most of it) while Carolyn has known how life in the FLDS was prior to Warren and probably during Rulon’s early years.

Yes, I know that the above doesn’t make sense, but I am just writing / typing / blogging whatever is coming to mind at this point… so bare(bear?) with me.

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Literary Review: Stolen Innocence by Elissa Wall

If you were to ask me why I decided to pick up a few audiobooks about those that have fled the “polygamist cult” also know as “The Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints” – FLDS for short – I wouldn’t be able to give you a straight answer.

I think it started while I was browsing various news articles one day on Yahoo.com and came across one about a young woman by the name of Ruby Jessop who fled FLDS and reached out to her sister (or was it cousin) Flora Jessop who had left years earlier.

The Yahoo News article expanded by talking about others that have fled including Suzette Steed and her children when their father/patriarch – Carling Steed – was banished from the FLDS community by Warren Jeffs. Within the article a few of the daughters mentioned how they were most afraid of being arranged in a marriage with someone that they would dislike… to which a cousin of theirs – Elissa Wall – understood.

According to Elissa she was forced to marry her first-cousin when she was 14 and he 19 (much like Ruby Jessop who was forced to marry her second-cousin when she was 14 and he in his early 20s). Elissa recounts her experiences before, during and after her ill-fated marriage in her personal memoir: Stolen Innocence.

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Possibilities: Changing Gears about a Character’s Background

FLDS…

Polygamy…

Placed Marriages…

Why in the world would I want to learn more about this off-shoot of… well I don’t really know how to explain it.

Let’s put it this way, a while back I wrote something that when I did some research and background prior to writing it involved being in an enclosed community that a couple of characters escaped from.

However as time wore on I started to feel unsure as to the legitimacy of what I was trying to do. So I decided to shelve the project until some smidgen of inspiration came for me to look at it again and rework it.

Well that moment happened and I found myself researching the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and their world which led me to look into the autobiographies of those that have escaped that particular world and their reasons (which tended to have similar reasons).

Thus how I found myself listening to the audiobooks of Elissa Wall (Stolen Innocence) and Carolyn Jessop (Escape and Triumph). As thus this post will begin with the first of the three audiobooks that I started listening to in an effort to understand the inner-workings of a community that I knew nothing about and suddenly have a desire to use as background information for a character and to use as realistically as possible.

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